Blinding Lights
by Itisariddle
Summary: A collection of drabbles set in the Harry Potter universe. Various Pairings. Rated m to be safe.
1. 1 Sea of wonders

**A/N: A collection of one shots/ficlets/drabbles whatever you want to call them set in the Harry Potter universe. Length varies. Various pairings.**

 **If you spot grammar and spelling mistakes please PM me.**

 **Disclaimer:** **None of the characters are mine, they belong to the genius of JKR and the various publishers, actors, producers and such associated with the books and movies. No money making intended.**

 **1\. Sea of wonders**

 _Severus Snape x Hermione Granger_

 **Originally written as a gift for Disilusionist9**

Note on names: I chose them quite deliberately Severa is I think the right female version of Severus in Latin or something but I liked it because it reminded me of the Russian Vera which means believe or faith I thought it fitting in this case. Harmon is a variation on Herman which means army man or warrior, again I thought it fitting.

 **"** **I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul."**

 **―** **Bram Stoker, Dracula**

'Which one?'

Severa Snape didn't turn around.

She was watching the lights flicker on one by one below her sitting on the windowsill and letting the wind pick up her hair. It was going to rain soon; she could smell it in the air already. A group of people on bikes passed by talking loudly and almost, almost colliding with an oncoming motorcycle that swayed aside just in time. One of the bikers whooped, another one laughed the sound of it raspy and deep but clear.

Amsterdam was preparing for the night.

Above her Patrick, her upstairs neighbour, opened a window his blond head sticking out momentarily before disappearing again. Severa heard him move around and then the silence was broken once more, this time by a radio.

She smirked, Mick Jagger with his songs of war of course.

'You know it would be really helpful if you at least looked at me.'

She had been in this city for four years.

She didn't choose it consciously she just wanted to get out. Go far away from Hogwarts and perhaps Amsterdam chose her because of that. It wasn't the most remote place she could have ended up at and yet as far as magic was concerned, it was like night and day. Which was what she had been going for anyway.

'Sev'

' Don't call me that' she snapped still without turning her eyes away from the now rainy street. 'I heard you the first two times.'

The first two years had been fine. She settled down. Stopped waking up in the night from her own screams, found a job.

But these past few ones...These past two years she had spent allowing. Allowing Harmon _(But mam we're not supposed to do werewolves yet, we're due to start hinkypunks...)_ Granger into her house, into her home, into her thoughts, into her bed and eventually unsurprisingly, into her heart.

She didn't even know how she could have been this stupid.

Twice.

 _(and it was supposed to be Lily wasn't it? What happened to your promises? What happened to your words?)_

She looked at him. He was standing in the middle of the room holding up two suits on hangers wearing his usual baggy pants and shivering, goose bumps running up his arms that bathed in the golden orange of setting sunlight.

'I am freezing' he said 'Is it raining? Can you close that window?'

'Put that red one on you can combine it with your Gryffindor tie that will go over well' she grumbled.

His face fell. He blinked and pulled a curl behind his ear biting his lip in the process. He looked the way she imagined a god might look and she had to grip the railing of the window with both hands to prevent herself from rushing to him, shaking him, kissing him, begging him not to leave.

But of course he was leaving. It was inevitable and she had let him in too far, allowed him to hurt her.

What else was he supposed to do _but_ leave?

'It's Potter and Weasley not a bloody job interview. You're making a fool of yourself.' She turned back to her rain outside the window.

'You are probably right' he said. She heard the strain in his voice and looked away from the wet street below just enough to be able to see him walking away from her from the corner of her eye. He walked quickly his head bowed and the suits thrown over his shoulder like a multi-coloured sack of flour. Then he stopped.

'You know what? No. This is not just 'Potter and Weasley' he turned back to face her again and this time, Severa turned to look at him fully. He had dropped the suits and was standing, hands balled into fists and eyes blazing. She remembered the last time she had seen him like that, they were arguing she couldn't for the life of her remember what about

(' _You ned to see someone about those headaches!'_

 _'_ _What's it to you?_ ')

and she suddenly looked at him standing in the hallway just like he was now, fists balled and eyes like fire and love had crashed into her like a curtain falling at the end of a play. It had been all she felt, it had always been all she felt.

'These are my friends that I have not seen for a very long time, for years and this is dealing with Draco Malfoy, _Draco Malfoy_ who I haven't seen since Hogwarts where –need I remind you- I _slapped him_ and this is dealing with Lavender Brown who according to Harry still hates me for' he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers, his hair flying out every which way 'for coming between her and her true love!'

'Well that last part is true' Severa commented drily. He glared at her before turning around and walking away again. The door of their bedroom slammed.

She sighed and stood reluctantly from her window. Harmon always told her not to sit that way ( _You'll fall...at least take off those heels...)._

 _Why do I put up with him?_

Opening the door to their bedroom she saw Harmon sitting on the bed staring into space, his eyes red rimmed. She walked back picked up the suits that were still on the ground and started hanging them neatly back in the closet.

'You should just wear what you usually wear' she said to the inside of the closet 'They are your friends.'

'I am scared' it came out in a hoarse halve whisper as if the words were forced from him squeezed out of his throat by a vicious hand. _You shouldn't think that._

'I picked up on the subtle hints' she smirked.

'Took you long enough' he grumbled and hit himself with a warming charm 'What if...what if we have nothing in common anymore?'

'Then it is better to know that now rather than-' she broke off. What was she going to say anyway? Having friends wasn't exactly her area of expertise.

'Rather than what?'

'Nothing.' She pushed her hair back from her face 'A clean break is better than dragging out something that does not work anymore' she offered finally knowing how peculiarly close this was coming to hurt, to that thing inside her that still hurt even now when he covered her heart so completely.

'You run the risk of irreversible damage. If you see that there is not much more in common, at least you can part as friends.' It sounded so easy she thought, _hypocrite._

' I don't want to part' he said standing and starting to dig through his shirts. She sat on the bed watching him, fighting contentment. She had watched him dress so often in the past month it had become habit. But she needed to remember that what she was watching now was different. He would return to his friends who would –rightfully- remind him of all the things that she was. His old teacher, the one they all hated and feared, a Death Eater, a bully. They would remind him of what she had done to the Longbottom boy, to Potter. And he would go.

She closed her eyes for a moment and stretched on the bed. The past could not be changed and she had no willingness or strength to change the future so why not enjoy the moment as it was she thought. For now he was here, pulling on a shirt backwards then changing it the right way with a quick glance at her as if he expected teasing. For now he was here and he still needed something from her.

'I know that you don't want to but sometimes these things are inevitable. People change' she said.

 _Or change back._ She had gotten too comfortable. They both had gotten too comfortable. Of course his friends were going to return. Take him back to the life that he was supposed to lead. Studying and laughing and meeting people. Not being cooked up with her in this unfurnished apartment talking endlessly of things that were long gone _(dead)._ That happened before he was even born.

'You'll be fine.' She said again kicking against a cushion with her foot and planting her heel deep in the centre as if she was stabbing the thing. It made her feel better somehow. 'I think Draco will be more uncomfortable he is the odd one out in your group now.'

'You still think it is my group?' he asked looking at the floor and biting his lip again.

'If you get dressed and go you'll find out' she said.

'What if it isn't? My group? Anymore what then?'

'You make a new one I guess. I don't know.'

'That is not very reassuring' he sat on the bed next to her.

'No it is not.' She answered watching him. 'Do you want me to come with you?' she really didn't feel like it. She wanted to lie here for a couple of hours until his smell would die in the room than stand pack up her things and move on. There was no way she was staying in this house waiting for him not to return. She needed to stop thinking this way it was becoming a bore. But her need, her _need_ for him was so complete in that moment that there was no way to escape that feeling. It had always been like that with her. All consuming or nothing at all. And she thought she had been careful not to get consumed again.

'I think that might push the situation from awkward to-'

'Disaster?'

'I was going to say complicated.' He rolled his eyes at her and bent to tie his shoelaces. 'You are welcome to come if you want to though.'

'About as much as I want to be stabbed.'

'That is exactly how I feel about it' he said sitting up again, excitement in his voice' as if there is this wall full of knives coming towards me and I can't do anything but wait for them all to stab me over and over.'

She frowned. She knew that feeling. If he was this worried about it...She had thought...mainly about herself. She sat up and kissed his shoulder ignoring his raised eyebrows.

'That's not going to happen. You kept in touch with Potter didn't you?'

'I did.' He said smiling at her. She pulled her arms around him, it was uncomfortable sitting like this but she did it anyway, he was warm and here and if she could make him see that she cared it was worth getting back pain over.

'But Ron-' he said leaning against her.

'Will act the complete fool he is. And you will look through that and see something worthwhile like you always do. Now, you do need to get going if you still want to' she said releasing him. He stood, started pacing, looked at her than sat back down.

'Well at least I have a home to come back to' he said smiling. She blinked. He couldn't mean...what she thought he meant could he?

 _Home._ It was an apt description of what he meant to her. Warmth and light and something, something entirely hers.

'Can we compromise can I text you or sent you a patronus or something if it is horrible and you come get me? Severa? You ok?'

'Ye...yes of course you can' she said swallowing hard. 'Of course you can.'

'Well than' he stood stretched then walked over to her and kissed her. 'I guess I am going to do this.'

She smiled at him and watched as he walked around between bedroom and hallway putting on a scarf and jacket he waved the plain brown scarf at her and stuck his tongue out 'Be good.'

'Very funny' she sat up her back cracking audibly.

'Let me know how it went either way will you?'

He stopped, keys clanging melodically in one hand, the other on the doorframe.

'I will if you want me too.'

'I want you too.'

He smiled, nodded, waved at her and left. She stood up and walked to the windowsill ignoring the silence pressing in on her. The apartment felt like a museum dedicated to him to his clothes, his smell his stupid ginger cat that was staring at her with it's yellow eyes in accusation. As if letting him go had been a choice she made. She stared out of the window placing her head against the glass and saw Harmon walk out, bend over his bicycle to unlock it. She imagined with sudden glee the way his friends were going to look at him when they saw him biking in those impossible crooked streets.

 _If he looks up he is mine_ she thought wistfully. _If he looks up he is mine._

She closed her eyes and held her breath.


	2. 2 Numbers and figures

**2\. Numbers and figures**

 _Severus Snape focussed one shot as a gift for Mindlesswisdom on Tumblr_

 **0**

..and the word for the world is light.

Blinding and eternal.

Soul meets body for a numerous time. The attending physician can't remember ever experiencing birth like this. It is a continued scream, the child seems to pick it from his mother's mouth and continue the sound. The doctor doesn't know it, but it is the only gift she will ever give him.

 **10**

...and the word for the world is hunger.

He knows it intimately in all its facets.

There is the hunger in his body gnawing and tugging at him like a petulant needy child. A brother or sister he sometimes wishes he could have. This hunger is a nag, it is missed dinners and shouting and a look his mother gives his father at times that he does not understand. It makes him angry in a way that makes him sad.

There is the hunger of the mind, that one is harder to ignore. It is a hand around his throat that squeezes from time to time in a way that lets him know that it's there. He feels it when he wanders through a bookstore and finds something that he knows he wants and can't buy because there never is enough money for things like books. He feels it more when he sneaks up to the attic at night with a flashlight that Lily has lent him and forgot about and he reads the books he has found in the trunk up there. There are pages missing from some of these books, there is dirt on the pages and sometimes writing in his mother's familiar scrawl. He smiles when he finds those pages. This hunger is a burn.

There is the hunger of...but he can't explain it. He won't name it to himself let alone to _her._ This hunger is the most painful. He wishes that he could lie to himself and pretend it is not there. But there is no helping him.

This hunger is killing.

It is razors through his arms, it itches and runs through his blood. He knows he should be ashamed of it. He has learned that lesson when Lily's father caught him one day in her room, alone. He was not doing anything in particular.

 _Alone_

He was just looking at her books. Lily's father looked at him. _Looked at him_ and he knew that he had been seen.

They look at each other the man and the boy and Lily's father smiles but it doesn't reach his eyes.

So he makes masks. It starts out carefully almost outside himself. He hides the hunger in his body by stealing, the hunger in his mind by sneaking and that other hunger that most consuming one he hides by silence.

 **20**

...and the word for the world is pain.

He can smoke so he does, he can breathe so he does he can talk so he does and they talk back at him. He belongs somewhere. He worked hard and he belongs now. His master looks down on him with grey eyes and smiles but the smile does not reach his eyes.

He is inside and it is snowing outside. There is a mask next to him and a mark on his arm that is so new that he is afraid to touch it yet, afraid to ruin it, and yet his arm already looks a ruin. He remembers _exactly_ what it felt like getting that mark. He remembers and knows somewhere deep inside that he has let another person inside the mask that he has made for himself. The mark looks like a stain and a burn and ink and skin all at the same time. But he knows what it is when he looks at it from the corner of his eye as he listens to his master speak as he kneels in the dirt to kiss his robes. It is an invasion and

 _He doesn't want to think it_

A perversion. It crawls inside him with life that is not his. It proves his father right. It makes him a monster.

 **30**

..and the word for the world is empty.

He is used to it by now. There is nothing new in pain but this one is dull and not leaving and he is beginning to hate it. He is alone and used to it, outside and used to that too. The rest of them moved on by now there is a world for them out there but he, he is still standing and standing still.

The wind up here never stops, he is standing at the highest point in the den of the highest tower watching little specks on the ground move and play and live while he stands still.

'Severus'

The old man is allowed to call him that now, not that he asked for permission but it has been given almost without realizing, implicitly as all the rest has been given. There is a point on the stairs beyond which Dumbledore won't go and it gives a certain smug satisfaction to know that he dares something, something the old man won't do.

'Come down please'

He does. He knows when to recognise a command added 'please' or not. So he comes down from the edge of the tower and stands before Dumbledore in silence. The old man smiles but his eyes stay on Severus, calculating yet warm. It is different variation to the red gaze that haunts his dreams. Dumbledore turns and he follows wordlessly, listening. There are words he needs to learns, spells he needs to master and there is not enough time. He is not afraid of the Dark Lord returning

 _It can't be_

but the boy with the green eyes, _her eyes,_ the boy is coming to Hogwarts. That fact is inevitable and Dumbledore speaks of him lovingly and the hardness in his eyes disappears.

And Severus hates the boy before he realizes what he is doing.

 **40**

...and there are no more words to describe the world.

He knows with perfect clarity that this is borrowed time. That these are not sunsets meant for him, that this is not air meant for him that something went horribly wrong because he is still breathing.

In his dreams three figures walk beside him accusing, asking, consuming. He thought he at least earned rest but the figures in his dreams disagree.

He entertains the thought of ending it all but that seems like a lot of work and he is tired. There are leaves falling outside his window and sounds in his kitchen. The girl he let in there is baking by the smell of it and she will force the food down his throat when she is done.

She is old before her years this girl, a warrior with a rigid straight spine but soft to the touch. And he is greedy and lonely and he decides for now, to keep touching her and listen to her and watch her spine curve under his hands for as long as she will let him.

This girl that he has seen sleep and seen cry and seen walk and who he has woken from nightmares that seemed worse than his own. He can't drown himself in whatever is wrong because she is too... just too bloody annoying to allow him.

So he fills his days with trying to make her smile.

It is a hard task, there are scars on her body and her mind. She can sit for hours curled up in his old quilt that she has found in the attic and washed and cleaned. She can sit and stare out of the window or into the fire and not move and on days that happens he feels inadequate and old. She can raise her voice for but he can do that too and he does and she can tremble for no apparent reason and shy away from touch but he can do that too.

Sometimes he thinks that she is punishing herself by being here and in those times he wants to throw her out. But she holds on refuses to give up and refuses to leave.

She walks around the house quietly and learns where the washing machine is hidden and what his favourite coffee cup is. She buys her own cup and books and a new dress and braids her hair with hands that have learned to care and work. The trees outside his window are suddenly in bloom and he cannot remember when it happened but she doesn't mind that.

She looks at him this girl he once thought he knew and he sees a woman that he recognises because he knows her. The girl and the woman merge into one.

And Severus loves her long before he realizes what he is doing.

 **50**

...and the world has a name.

There is air in his lungs and he has forgotten what it is like to count every breath or walk around from one cigarette to the other.

He still remembers pain and knows he is ridiculous for doing this.

 _Who does this at 50?_

But she is looking at him and there is a smile in her eyes through it all. He holds her hands in his and kisses the fingers briefly and the smile that started in her eyes spreads to her lips. So he does what he is supposed to do as he has always done.

'I do' he tells her

And adds 'Hermione' and a kiss.


	3. 3 The swings

**3\. The swings**

 _Severus Snape x Regulus Black_

 **Originally written for Happy Snape week on Tumblr**

There is usually one moment, one thing that defines you gives you wings and ends your beginning and gives you that thing that the old call purpose and the young call blood and heat and for Severus Snape it were always the swings.

The swings had been there since he had been born. Squeaking sounds and blinding light coming off the chains on a good summer's day. The seat worn and leathery scratched and battered. They had stood there taunting him and attracting him at the same time.

He went to look at the swings every day.

Sometimes he sat on them in his old baggy jeans and felt the rusty chain links under his fingers. On those days the playground- if you could call it that - was empty. Most days though he hid in the shadows, watching as other kids yelled, laughed, and damaged the old swings further. Kids were mean, he did not need to learn that the hard way, he had seen it for himself from his hiding place.

Today he left the house early while his mother and father were still asleep. It was Saturday and he had helped himself to a bar of chocolate and had put on an overcoat that was two sizes too big. It was a sunny day in March but one could never be too cautious for rain. He walked slowly breaking off a piece of chocolate from time to time and savouring the sweet and bitter taste of it. The air smelled of coming summer but the wind tossed his hair and pricked his cheeks.

Severus had promised himself that this year, this summer would be the last one that he was going to visit the swings. He was going to go to Hogwarts this September, his mother had confirmed it and he highly doubted that wizards, respectable wizards the kind he was going to be, spent their time with watching stupid muggle toys like swings. He was going there today for the last time. Just to say goodbye he told himself, just to look at them once more and try to feel whatever it was he was going to feel. He was a little afraid of what that was going to be.

He came to the end of the street and turned right stepping cautiously around a stone on the road, his head lowered as he reached the crop of trees he usually stood by when he watched the swings. This time the still air was slashed trough by voices. His hands clenched into fists without him even noticing.

'Sirius look!'

The voice sounded very young, high and excited. Severus stopped beneath the trees and looked over at the playground. The swings were abandoned after what seemed to be heavy use. They were swinging wildly and the chains screamed.

There were two boys in the playground. From first sight, Severus knew they were brothers. They looked not so much identical as a continuation from young to old. As if they were showing each other, what the other one was going to look like and had looked like. They were both dark haired and tall but there was a distinct difference in the way they stood. The older one closer to Severus stood as a king straight back, his chin in the air as confidence allowed to stand. He looked already aware of himself and his handsomeness.

'Mother said that you may not!'

He stared down at his younger brother.

Severus looked at the two of them feeling jealousy rise within him like a snake that had been asleep but now awoke to an all too familiar song. He had always wanted a brother, a sister, anyone that would be just his that he could tell his secrets to that could help him deal with mother and father...he bit his tongue in a deliberate attempt to stop thinking. Somewhere a bird cried.

'Freak! You're a freak!'

Severus blinked. Blinded by the feelings rising within him he had not noticed that the boys were having an argument. The older one was shouting at the younger who looked defiant and hurt. Where his brother seemed almost majestic this boy was scrawny and handsome in an underappreciated way that did not hut. It was hard to look away from him.

'You're a freak Regulus!'

The boy named Regulus looked petulant. Severus moved closer to be able to hear better and saw that Regulus was holding a flower in his hand. The petals were moving on their own opening and closing in a calm rhythm.

For a moment Severus was too startled to register what he was seeing. The older boy, Sirius, looked at the moving petals with a disgusted, frightened expression that twisted his lower lip and made him look pettish. Regulus was looking from his brother with sad eyes. The petals of the flower on his hand continued moving. One word flashed in Severus's startled mind.

Wizard

The other boy was a wizard.

He felt like he was breathing someone else's memory of air instead of the real thing. There was a fire in his chest and his eyes were watery as if he had bitten into a rotten lemon. He felt like he could look at the boy forever.

The boy was a wizard. A wizard. Just like him.

'I am telling mum and dad!' Sirius was yelling now 'I am telling them you are a freak!'

'He is n-no-not!'

Severus didn't remember moving but suddenly there was no longer the protection of the trees and he was standing right in the open looking at the two stunned boys the fire in his chest souring as Sirius frowned. Both boys stared at him. Regulus dropped the flower, his mouth hung open slightly.

'He is a wizard! You are a wizard.'

'A what?' Regulus asked startled.

'I know you' Sirius said 'You are that Snape boy' he stepped away from Severus as if scared to catch a disease.

Regulus stepped closer 'A wizard?' he said doubtfully 'there is no such thing.'

'There is' Severus said 'I bet there is loads of things you can do. I-' he paused, he never spoke about this with anyone. Regulus was looking at him with wide eyes but Severus bit his tongue. Thoughts were forming into words faster than he could control and he felt them pressing against his lips in messy rows (and if he spoke what then?).

'You're a wizard. Like me.'

Sirius huffed but took another step away.

'I set our couch on fire once' Regulus said in a disbelieving tone of voice. 'Mum and dad thought it was an electrical accident, but it was me.'

Severus smiled.

'I can fly' he whispered.

'You can?'

'Come on Reg we need to go.'

But Regulus did not hear his brother. Slowly tentatively, his lips formed the word 'magic'.

'Are you really a wizard?'

Instead of answering Severus looked at the ground. There were sticks and stones there and ashes and dust. They made a pretty whirlwind when lifted.

'I can fly.'

Regulus looked at him his eyes sparkling, a slow smile playing on his lips.

Together the two boys went to the swings.


	4. 4 The taking of Hermione Granger

**4\. The taking of Hermione Granger**

 _Tom Riddle x Hermione Granger_

Written as a gift for Ozzymandius

 **I.**

He knew there was no death, not for him. There was water and nothing else and he knew how to deal with water. There was imagery, a memory of falling. An empty bed, a missed spell, a scream, but he knew it was not the end. Perhaps, this was a sort of hell he reasoned, he was here with the mudblood after all and yet to him it seemed that God had missed the mark. He continued, he lived, he could see his own breath on the water and he knew he would thrive.

 **II.**

She was under now, his fingers on her throat and the urge to kill so strong he choked on it. He knew how to destroy but it was not all he knew. Her wet hair was in her face, her features distorted by water grotesque almost and lovely at the same time. He did not know how to feel that, lovely. How do you feel that word?

Her eyes open and her mouth slack the skin of her throat like sand and paper slipping through his hands. He did not want to destroy but he knew he needed to show her what it means to him that she was here with him and he had no way to show her but destruction.

So he does what he does best and speaks...

 _Hello Hermione Granger, my name is Tom Riddle._

The words burn on the ceiling of her room, in her eyes and inside, on her throat when she regains consciousness. It was a dream but it was not a dream and she chooses to lie to herself. The air around her smells of water. The words on the ceiling burn. What else? Earth. They had put him into earth, she saw it happen and now she is home. In her Muggle home, with her Muggle parents and her Muggle paintings on the ceiling. It was a dream she lies to herself because she needs it to be a dream so badly she is choking with it.

 **III.**

She was not like the others. She knew what he was from the start; he could see it in her with eyes that felt like his for the first time in years. This place fed him as much as a womb would. He looked up at the starry sky one hand on her throat the other shielding himself from the light above. There were trees on the bank now. This world was shaping to be beautiful. She wriggled under his hand and tried to rise but he pushed down gently almost lovingly. There was no need for hurt here, he could learn in time could he not?

Her hand rose from the water and scratched him so he took her nails one by one and looked at the blood spreading though the water like roses. Now he had given her flowers. Was that not the start of any romance?

 **IV.**

She wakes knowing what she would see and knowing that she did not truly wake. There is a sweet smell of blood that reminds her of flowers. There are stains on her bedsheets. Harry is there and she stands up and walks and laughs and cries and moves. Day, she can distinguish day by the smell of it the sun smells warm and the sky smells bright. She can still hear the water in her ears, whispering, whispering.

 _Hello Hermione Granger my name is Tom Riddle._

 **V.**

She spoke so he took her tongue. He did feel ashamed of it, at some point, to some extent. There was no particular need to trap her squeeze her mouth open work himself inside. Slender fingers, darkness, light, water. Blood blooming around him not as a flower but as a pool now. The water whispering to him like parseltongue but sweeter, softer. He knew what he took from her. And she was brave. Another would have called to him, cried out or asked for help she did neither. She spoke truth, the first truth he had the pleasure of hearing in a long time.

'Bastard!'

The word spoken harshly enough for him to understand that she understood. This was no dream this world of his with oranges growing from trees and ravens circling the air.

And was he not a bastard? In the truest sense of the word? Unwanted and unloved with a spine fit for feeling the springs through the mattress on his bed all the time and feet too long to hide under the covers? Scared and lonely and powerful and sad. The boy who still watched magic destroy his life every night. The boy who knew that he needed to control or be controlled. The boy who chose power. With a mother who could not care less and a father who never wanted him. A bastard. Born out of hate, deceit. A bastard born out of the mixture of purity and disillusionment. He was ever truly a bastard and she had not been afraid to call him so. Her lips moving and gasping for air and her limbs thrashing as he applied more pressure to her throat to hold her down. So he took her tongue and yet she should be rewarded. It had been too long since anyone spoke the truth to him.

He lifted her from the water.

 **VI.**

'Hello Hermione Granger, my name is Tom Riddle.'

She whispers the words in her mind because her tongue is stuck to the inside of her cheek and she cannot speak. There are walls here, not white luckily she has not reached the stage of white walls. She is nauseous all the time. Her throat hurts all the time and there are words in her head repeating words that she cannot speak.

 _Hello Hermione Granger_

That she cannot stop, cannot unthink. They roil inside her and although they are not hers they somehow also are and that is the scary part. She knows them to be true, she knows the way their whisper feels against her ears. She knows the way they turn her stomach with the truth in them.

 _My name is Tom Riddle, my name is Tom Riddle, my name is Tom Riddle._

She can hear nothing but the words inside her head so she says them aloud hoping someone else will hear them too but no one does. She cannot speak and when she does all that comes out are words that feel foreign in her mouth. Words like 'I do' and 'I am fine'.

 _Hello_

Inside she is no longer burning and no longer ice cold. Inside she is not nothing. That would be a relieve. Instead she is a nuance.

 _Hermione_

There are people around her that she can see her eyes are still hers and she can touch that is the last blessing touch but how can you touch someone who is so far away? She cannot understand why she would want to. The world in her head is not real. The smell of oranges makes her want to throw up.

 _Granger_

 **VII.**

'My name is Tom Riddle'

He spoke the words aloud as they sat next to each other on the sandbank of what once was the sea. There was a sun in the sky, burning. He liked the sun. He liked the grass, the open field in front of him flanked by threes wearing oranges like little suns. He liked the vastness of his new world and the snakes in the grass and the birds in the sky. He liked the day more than he liked the night now. The girl regained her bushy hair. He dried it himself when he lifted her from the water. There was no need now to choke her but he still kept his fingers lightly around her throat although he knew that she would not go. Her eyes were closed, what he could see of them anyway her hair was blocking most of the view he had of her face. Her hands rested in her lap. He knew she was not asleep anymore her breathing had stopped matching his.

He said it again. The words that have lured so many to his side, made them do his bidding in that other place, that other life. His name meant power wherever he was now that was still true. His name would shake worlds awake there was no doubt in his mind of that.

'What would you have me do?' he said to amuse himself. The girl rested her head on his shoulder and opened her eyes and watched him. He could see the hatred in her eyes. So he took her eyes.

 **VIII.**

Darkness everywhere. She knows instinctively that there is a world outside of her world, their world but she can no longer see it. The smell of oranges is overwhelming. She cries, wakes, cries. In the meantime she does things. Stands and makes breakfast and knows and answers and reads but when that starts to hurt she throws the books away from her. She is found in the middle of the room that she no longer sees laying on her back counting bricks in the castle wall. The walls are still, thank the gods, not white. But they soon will be. Her body is restrained and she is thankful. If it stops moving she can no longer be expected to do things that no longer make any sense to her. She can only see the towers, hear the songs of birds in her head. She would have thought he would prefer ravens. She knows his eyes intimately. When she sleeps she knows his body, her bed becomes it and the sheets become his breath. She no longer fears, fear would have even been a welcome change to this routine that has become her life. She counts to ten each day to watch it past faster. At night she screams.

 **IX**.

He knew what she wanted. The wind tossed his hair. He saw the castle in the distance and knew what it was. Sun setting on it rooftops, of course. Of course this would be his way in. The world he created was too detailed now. Too boring. But he loved it, loved as she had taught him too. Now he understood. From watching her he knew what had gone wrong last time. He looked at the castle fondly.

He knew he would not get there alone. He simply did not want to be alone this time.

So he took her heart.


	5. The gift

Minerva McGonagall x Severus Snape friendship

'I got you a present…'

Minerva McGonagall set her jaw and looked away from the chess board she had been staring at fruitlessly for the past fifteen minutes. Severus Snape was sneering at her, mirth dancing in his dark eyes. She looked at his outstretched hand and the small winged ball sitting in his palm and sighed.

'What do you want Severus?'

'I just thought you might like to see what a Snitch looks like before you forget completely.' he said his eyes still firmly on her.

Minerva fumed. Gryffindor had lost to Slytherin by a mere five points but lose they did.

Again.

This would be the fourth time in a row she was going to lose the House Cup that was a certainty now. Gryffindor was out of the rase. She stood and crossed the staff room with quick and determined strides focussing all her energies on the teapot standing on a small table. By the time she reached it, a cup had materialized and Minerva decided to busy her hands with pouring the tea instead of hexing her colleague. He was still watching her, she could feel those eyes burning in her back.

He had always been like this she thought even as a student. He could never get enough of having attention….on the rare occasions he received any attention as a student at this school that is. Minerva felt the odd mixture of guilt, rage, pride and pity coming to the service again, it was becoming her go-to mix of feelings whenever she had to deal with Severus Snape these days.

He had been a talented student but Minerva had never quite forgotten the company he had kept.

And yet Albus had taken him on as a teacher and despite her personal feelings about his teaching methods she could not deny that the young man loved his House and made an excellent head of it. A bit too excellent Minerva thought bitterly, watching him.

In her mind's eye she again saw the Slytherin Seeker - a heavy set boy who by no means had the talent to get at that Snitch not with her own Seeker so close - pull off a spectacular dive and grab the small winged ball without even as much as falling off his broom.

Severus smirked still watching her closely.

Minerva glared at him then sighed. It wasn't the last game either of them would see. There would be others and, she was certain of it, better ones for Gryffindor. If she wanted this rivalry to stay friendly however she would have to be the one to budge first.

' Do you want some tea as well?' she asked conjuring a second cup with her wand.

He seemed startled by the question. In a moment the confident young man sneering at her was replaced by a boy unsure how to hold himself in front of her, where to put his hands how to look at her. But that was only a fleeting moment.

' If you are pouring.' he said straightening and fixing a look of polite disdain back to his face.

Minerva hid a smile. ' I am now' she said picking up a chair and setting it firmly at her table.

' Sit.' she demanded ' Let's see if this Slytherin victory will help you through our game.'

Severus Snape sat down.


	6. Look up to the sky

_Hermione Granger x Severus Snape_

Hermione Granger was going to die.

She stood in the dark, one hand clutching the stich in her side, the other on the rough stone wall. The corridor that she was in took one sharp curve and continued on to reveal a set of stairs.

 _Even more stairs._

She tried to steady her breathing but found it impossible, the air in her throat was razor sharp and yet somehow not enough of it seemed to arrive to her lungs. Her legs were agony, her eyes watered, she wanted very much to sit down and sulk for at least half a day. It was unfair.

She was going to die in here.

She was going to die in this narrow corridor with no proper windows, in the cold surrounded by hundreds of strangers passing her with indifferent or pitying expressions. Hermione took in one more breath and glared at the couple passing her as she stood trying to get her legs to work again.

'You all right there?'

Hermione looked up. The quite intimidating figure of Severus Snape was looming over her. Somehow he had managed to turn around on the stairs and walk back against the stream of tourists climbing up the St. Peter dome. He stood in the middle of the narrow staircase actually forcing people to either wait or go around him. His face was impassive as he stared down at her hands in the pockets of his jeans. A t shirt showcasing the Ghostbusters hung loosely around his too thin frame, the stupid boo saying ghost on it smirked at Hermione.

She glared at it. Severus lifted an eyebrow continuing to stare at her impassively. All to make her feel eleven years old again. She was going to kill him.

'I...am f-fine' she managed. He smirked.

Yes, killing him might work.

'This was your idea. I told you St. Peter will not have me' he said.

She took in another breath 'How are you not even tired?'

'Magic' he responded his face still expressionless making it impossible for her to tell if he was joking, mocking her, being sarcastic or God forbid sincere.

''Healer Pane said no magic for at least another month!'

He rolled his eyes turned and started up the stairs again.

'You spent three month in a hospital!' she shouted at his retreating back causing people to look back at her.

Stubborn mule.

Hermione shut her eyes trying to get her sore feet back into motion again. If her calculations had been correct they had made it up one third of the way.

She moved, one hand still on the rough stone wall. Whose idea was this anyway?

She should know better than this. She could still remember Severus lying in bed hooked up to God knows what kind of combination of magical and muggle machineries to help him eat and talk and breath and live. She couldn't stop shaking the first time she had seen that monstrous machine behind his bed and him so small and somehow broken lying there without being able to move. Only his eyes had been the same, flashing dangerously at her as she walked into the small white room.

It had been early summer and the contradiction of the outside sun and the shadows inside had struck her as indecent. She had convinced herself that it was her duty to come to this place where the pain of the war was still palpable, where she felt her careful control slip and her limbs starting to shake as her mind and the different intricate walls that she had built in there, crumbled to dust and ashes.

She had walked on. It had taken her five turns around the same floor following the cries of some desperate residual of humanity until she bumped into a nurse and stumbled over her request, Harry's request, to come see him. Snape had managed to block Harry out entirely, even the staff refused him entry but she was a moot point. He had not mentioned not wanting to see her and besides she was the muggle born war hero after all.

The startled healer with her pale brown eyes had shown her to the right door and left her to contemplate opening it. Hermione had done so on her second breath.

It had been light and empty in the room and she had lasted all of five minutes.

The bite had destroyed Snape's ability to speak or swallow properly, oxygen deprivation to his brain had caused damage to his ability to keep proper balance but the venom had been the worst of it. It had somehow altered his magic forcing him to re-learn spells as if he were a student at Hogwarts instead of the fearsome dungeon bat, worst teacher she, Hermione Granger, had ever had.

Yet Hermione had felt no pity. He simply did not allow it.

The small room that they had stashed him away in looked like a tomb windowless and stale the odour of a muggle hospital filling every crack in the wall. She had asked for a different room, demanded to see a healer and then sat there day after day talking. First about his ailments and her progress at getting the right healer interested in his medical case and the right lawyer interested in his legal one. He had endured it silently, slept through most of it actually, which had been lucky for her.

When he was able to speak there was a sweet sent to the air and Harry had resorted to sending owls. She collected the letters paid and fed the birds and watched the stack of them pile up unread on his new nightstand.

The topic of conversation had turned to her, her parents, her friends her luckless tries at getting a job and her figuring out that apart from knowing how to vanquish a Dark Lord she knew pretty much nothing else, that she was useless. She needed her parents. She didn't know how to get her parents back.

'Cry' he had whispered one day as she sat on the edge of his bed her feet tucked under the blankets.

'Cry'

And she had cried leaning over until she was curled up on the bed next to him with his arms around her. How he had gotten back the use of his body or the command over his wand she didn't know but after that day she had spent crying in his arms Severus Snape pulled himself back from the arms of death and settled straight into hers.

'What is the first thing you want to do once you can get out of here?' she asked looking around at the now sunny white room with lots of windows.

He shrugged. 'I'd like to get out of here' he said with emphasis.

So they had done that. Rome had been his idea apparently; he had always wanted to visit. But this ridiculous climb up to the top of the St. Peter that bright idea had been hers. It was so stupid, so reckless so...so...

'So Gryffindor' she exclaimed. A boy in a bright purple T-shirt stared at her. She had to resist the urge to stick her tongue out at him. Now that she thought about it, the idea was absurd. Severus had been out of the hospital for less than a month, she was still waking up at night terrified of...something, something going wrong checking his breathing as he slept. He had been without the cane today and the guards at the entrance had let them in amongst the clamour of people talking in every language on earth. She didn't give herself time to look at the church properly wanting to get up the dome as soon as she had set eyes on it outside. It was like something was pulling her up there, something that she now could admit to herself had to do with pride and anger.

She wanted.

She wanted to do something again. To dare her body to its limits, to try again, to do something impossible.

She wanted to be Hermione Granger again.

The thought that she was actually going to kill Severus settled uncomfortably somewhere between her ribs pushing her onwards. He had said nothing of her mad desire to get to the top of the church mumbling something about at least not using a dragon this time and had let her drag him along in the day's heat towards the entrance. He had said nothing as they stood in the cramped elevator and again nothing the first time she had gotten too badly out of breath and stopped for a rest. She had felt stupid that first time sitting on a window ledge and trying to catch her breath. A dark haired woman of a beauty Hermione had rarely encountered had sat next to her, out of breath and red faced and the two of them had laughed at each other in an exhilarated way.

Severus for his part had chosen one pace of walking and had stuck to it without as much as breaking a sweat doubling back on occasion to check on her after she had given up on keeping up with him.

The staircase continued on and Hermione climbed dutifully, hating her tired limbs and trying to think of it as Hogwarts nothing more than a climb to the Astronomy tower or Professor's Trelawney's smelly room.

But it wasn't quite like that this was not a castle and these walls held no comfort.

The stairs turned, leading her into a new passage.

Hermione looked up. The hallway was narrow, lit only with what seemed to her tired eyes to be torches although logic dictated that was not possible. There were even more stairs the passageway here was made in a way that only allowed one person to walk through it. She filled into a line behind a skinny middle aged man with a huge moustache who was talking raptly to another skinny middle aged man that looked to be his brother.

'Hermione'

She turned and smiled.

'What are you still doing here?'

She thought Severus would be up the dome a long time ago. He shook his hair out of his face and looked at her, the corners of his mouth twitching.

''What?'

'You look a right mess' he said smiling.

'Thank you so much' she muttered. She lifted her hand thinking to make something of her hair but then decided that it was too much trouble.

'Are you tired?'

He nodded. 'Come on. I wanted to wait for you, after this point there is no way of going back.'

 _There is no way of going back._

She looked at him at the light falling through a narrow window and illuminating the tip of his overly large nose in a way that made her bite her lip to keep from laughing. She looked at the stairs again, how much farther could it be? A thousand steps or a thousand more she didn't care. Her arms were tired so she wrapped them around Severus pushing him back into a nook to allow others to pass them.

'If you want to go back..' he grumbled somewhere above her head.

Hermione smiled, closed her eyes and listened to his irregular breathing.

She never wanted to go back.


	7. May 2nd

On a scale of one to ten the pain is…unbearable. The funny thing is that it's not the neck that hurts. He has known pain all his life and the neck wound isn't pain. It is a kind of numbness that promises pain and something sweet, maybe something he has not known yet.

No, what hurts is the knowledge that he used what might be his last breath to stare at Harry bloody _Potter_. It was a forgivable moment of weakness he reasons with himself now laying in a pool of blood of which he is vaguely aware that it is only becoming larger. He wanted to see her eyes. He thought he'd earned that much. But at the end of it, it were not her eyes he saw.

The color was right he supposes but the rest of it. The shape of them and the face in which they sat and the glasses in front and…. just all of it. It was _wrong._ He feels his fingers trying to curl into a fist because yes he wants to slam a fist into something a wall preferably. He wants to throw another bottle of cockroaches at that boy's head because…hell because he just wants to. He is dying, he doesn't need a reason anymore.

He knows that he is slowing the natural process down a bit. The anger inside him provides enough adrenaline to stay conscious, to stay alert. To think and after he is done cursing Potter in all ways he can imagine another thought crosses his mind. _What if he doesn't die?_

The idea is almost a wicked one, he is supposed to leave the battlefield now he knows. His part in the plan is over. He doesn't get to see the end. But the idea latches on in the part of his brain that is still functioning and he knows that not dying means getting off this floor. He tries standing up but that doesn't work. There is too much pain for that. It's all right. He is used to pain, in fact he can't remember a time in his life when something _didn't_ hurt. He settles back down and waits for the worst of it to ebb away. He'll crawl then, he knows the Schack well enough to figure out where the exit is, he hopes. Crawling isn't shameful. At least this time no one is here to watch him do it and laugh.

He turns to his side and starts dragging his body along the wall against which he was supposed to die and wonderful miracle, there is his wand and it is not broken. He reaches for it and when he feels it in his hand again the little idea of not dying becomes more clear. _No, how about no, Albus_ he thinks vaguely and then scolds himself. He needs to concentrate. The wand in his hand is warm, he has to stop himself from reaching his free hand up to see what exactly is wrong with his neck. He thinks that if he sees more blood he might decide to die anyway. _Stop wallowing_ he scolds himself and starts instead to concentrate on spells, old spells that the Half-Blood Prince made up years ago right about the time he realized that Sirius Black wouldn't hesitate to kill. The spells are non- verbal thank God but it still takes a lot to concentrate and as he is half laying half sitting on the ground it hurts.

At first he can't figure out what hurts but then his left arm explodes with pain and he can feel the mark, twisting, itching, crawling beneath his skin. He can feel the magic. Magic that is not his but magic that he has been living with, that has been under his skin, for a long time, wither away. He knows that this can mean only one thing, that it means that Potter succeeded, that somehow that dimwitted idiot managed to do something right. When the pain ebbs away to bearable he finds himself laying on the floor on his back staring up at the ceiling and he is laughing. It hurts but he is laughing, it hurts but he can't seem to be able to stop. Laughter, mad, indecent, impossible laughter is shaking him whole and he knows he needs to stop and he needs to concentrate but he can't stop. It is done he thinks vaguely and that prompts another round of hysterical giggles.

'Oh Jesus God.'

The voice is female and for a second he thinks he sees a flash of red and a smile but hell there is no way that Lily Evans, Lilly _Potter_ , is waiting for him in any kind of afterlife. Besides, he is now certain that he is not dying.

The girl comes into view, a hand clapped to her mouth dirt mixed with tears on her face an oh Merlin her hair does look ridiculous from his particular vantage point. He watches as she tries shaking it out of her eyes and her fingers actually get stuck in the curls. It is hilariously funny. She stares at him, unmoving and he feels his lips start forming her name.


End file.
